Take a photo of a barcode or cover
4.3 AVERAGE
4.3 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
medium-paced
I'm going to break this review down into two parts: the narration itself, and the content. Because both of these things play an insanely large role in my enjoyment and rating of this book.
The narration itself was a disaster. The author narrated the book herself, which usually is something I love. When the narrator reads their own work, especially nonfiction, I feel like they're able to convey the emotions and point better than someone else narrating because they're the ones who wrote it. However. The way Brene Brown read this seemed almost condescending because she was constantly repeating herself and telling you "I'm going to read that again because its important" or "let me repeat that because it was pretty dense" even when it wasn't. She was also constantly adding "this is an aside just for the audiobook listeners" and then would tell you her feelings or make it sound like an addendum she added at the last second while narrating. Just read the words you wrote. This isn't a conversation? She should have just hired an actual audiobook narrator to do this because it would have been more tolerable. The only benefit really was her describing the illustrations that are in the book just in case you don't have access to the PDF, but even then it still seemed condescending because why are you describing what a ewe is when the painting you're talking about centers sheep to begin with?
The content itself of the book was unengaging for the most part. I didn't get interested until the book focused on the difference between empathy and sympathy. But once she shifted focus to shame, she made a lot of extremely vague blanket statements instead of giving more accurate information, which now just makes her information incorrect. There were also a lot of personal anecdotes that it seemed they outweighed the actual research and work she mentioned. She also compared democrats and republicans to an active genocide and I think that was both extremely unnecessary and distasteful. You could have made your point about contempt without doing that. Especially since she went on to explain "how hate is different than contempt" which specifically mentions wanting to kill someone/people as a result of that emotion. She also kept plugging podcasts way too much. Whether it was her podcast or a podcast she was on, she took every opportunity to tell you to go an watch that podcast. That's not what I'm reading the book for ma'am.
The narration itself was a disaster. The author narrated the book herself, which usually is something I love. When the narrator reads their own work, especially nonfiction, I feel like they're able to convey the emotions and point better than someone else narrating because they're the ones who wrote it. However. The way Brene Brown read this seemed almost condescending because she was constantly repeating herself and telling you "I'm going to read that again because its important" or "let me repeat that because it was pretty dense" even when it wasn't. She was also constantly adding "this is an aside just for the audiobook listeners" and then would tell you her feelings or make it sound like an addendum she added at the last second while narrating. Just read the words you wrote. This isn't a conversation? She should have just hired an actual audiobook narrator to do this because it would have been more tolerable. The only benefit really was her describing the illustrations that are in the book just in case you don't have access to the PDF, but even then it still seemed condescending because why are you describing what a ewe is when the painting you're talking about centers sheep to begin with?
The content itself of the book was unengaging for the most part. I didn't get interested until the book focused on the difference between empathy and sympathy. But once she shifted focus to shame, she made a lot of extremely vague blanket statements instead of giving more accurate information, which now just makes her information incorrect. There were also a lot of personal anecdotes that it seemed they outweighed the actual research and work she mentioned. She also compared democrats and republicans to an active genocide and I think that was both extremely unnecessary and distasteful. You could have made your point about contempt without doing that. Especially since she went on to explain "how hate is different than contempt" which specifically mentions wanting to kill someone/people as a result of that emotion. She also kept plugging podcasts way too much. Whether it was her podcast or a podcast she was on, she took every opportunity to tell you to go an watch that podcast. That's not what I'm reading the book for ma'am.
Brene does a really good and articulate job of mapping out what different emotion words mean, explaining that the more precise we can be in our language, the better we can communicate with others about how we feel. I've already started recommending it to clients. I listened to it which was enjoyable but might be a good book to own for reference.
informative
reflective
fast-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
emotional
reflective
medium-paced
informative
reflective
medium-paced
This is a really lovely and comprehensive overview of 87 emotions and experiences. One of Brene Brown's best. (Also I thought this paired so nicely with bell hook's All About Love that I read at the same time)
informative
reflective
slow-paced
It was a very good book just didn’t like the added political topics.
informative
reflective
slow-paced